1. Technical Field
This invention relates to electric and hybrid vehicles and, more particularly, to a vehicle battery recharging system for providing users with an effective mechanism for recharging a vehicle's battery using wind energy.
2. Prior Art
In 1820, the Danish physicist Hans Christian Oersted discovered that electricity can produce magnetic fields. Oersted's discovery unified the study of electricity and magnetism and resulted in such practical applications as the electromagnet, the telegraph, and the electric motor. In 1831, British physicist Michael Faraday demonstrated the reciprocal effect—that moving magnets induce electricity. Faraday's discovery provided the principle for electric power generation. In a simple generator, a coil of conducting wire is placed between two magnets and spun, inducing an electric current. The generator's alternating current, in which electrons move back and forth, differs from a battery's direct current in which electrons always flow in one direction, from negative to positive.
In the contemporary world, generators range from the huge hydroelectric turbines that power cities to the gas-powered emergency generators that consumers use during power outages, to the alternators in our cars—which generate alternating current and then convert it to direct current to maintain the charge in our car batteries.
All generators depend on a motive force to spin either their coils or their magnets. The force of flowing water rotates the fins in a hydroelectric turbine, and a revolving shaft in turn rotates the coils; gas-powered generators use an internal combustion engine and a driveshaft t produce rotation; and the electromagnets in a car's alternator are spun by a driveshaft connected to a belt driven by the engine. Thus, to generate electricity, a generator requires an input of kinetic, or mechanical, energy. That energy may be provided by the gravitational potential of water stored behind a dam; by a gasoline motor; by the steam-driven turbines of a coal or nuclear plant, or by the wind.
In a hybrid or electric vehicle, a big battery bank stores sufficient electrical energy for the vehicle to travel for a specific designed mileage. Thereafter, the battery must be recharged in order to retain the energy level in order to drive the vehicle transmission and wheels. Usually, the batteries may be recharged at recharging stations which may be located at a distance from the vehicle. Therefore, a battery or charging system which can retain a vehicle's battery's energy for a longer mileage is one of the issues which the electric car designer has to grapple with.
Accordingly, a need remains for system in order to overcome the above-noted shortcomings. The present invention satisfies such a need by providing a vehicle battery recharging system that is convenient and easy to use, lightweight yet durable in design, versatile in its applications, and designed for providing users with an effective mechanism for recharging a vehicle's battery using wind energy.